1917.02.15 “Shaking the Morale” by Oscar Edward Cesare

1917.02.15 “Shaking the Morale”
by Oscar Edward Cesare (1883-1948)
14 x 22 in, crayon on board
Coppola Collection

Cesare was a Swedish-born American artist. Cesare worked at several publications throughout his career, including the Chicago Tribune, New York World, New York Sun, New York Evening Post, Our World, The Century Magazine, Bookman, Outlook, Nation's Business, Literary Digest, Fortune, and The New Yorker. In 1920, he became a regular contributor to the Sunday magazine of the New York Times and continued until a few years before his death. He was a strong opponent to WW1.

The specter of death in the head of Kaiser Wilhelm II, rising from a U-boat, killing along the Atlantic coast of the US.

On January 31, 1917, Germany announces the renewal of unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic as German torpedo-armed submarines prepare to attack any and all ships, including civilian passenger carriers, said to be sighted in war-zone waters.

The Germans’ most formidable naval weapon was the U-boat, a submarine far more sophisticated than those built by other nations at the time. The typical U-boat was 214 feet long, carried 35 men and 12 torpedoes, and could travel underwater for two hours at a time. In the first few years of World War I, the U-boats took a terrible toll on Allied shipping.